


Something Here Inside (Cannot Be Denied)

by Sir_Bedevere



Category: Masters of Sex
Genre: Aftercare, All the lights, F/M, Light Angst, Light Bondage, Light Dom/sub, Opaque references to Bill's sad life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-24
Updated: 2020-02-24
Packaged: 2021-02-28 00:55:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,745
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22885138
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sir_Bedevere/pseuds/Sir_Bedevere
Summary: They’re going to do it properly this time. It hadn’t been a game before, not when she said that she had fantasised about making him helpless. Surely it was only normal to want to ruffle the feathers of such a man, a man so tightly in control. But he would break. She’d seen him break. She’d seen himcry.Virginia wants Bill to let go.
Relationships: Virginia Johnson/William Masters
Kudos: 29





	Something Here Inside (Cannot Be Denied)

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place kinda towards the end of season 2 - a bit vague on that. But it is definitely after they solve Bill's impotence problem. Directly references that one episode - you know the one.

They’re going to do it properly this time. It hadn’t been a game before, not when she said that she had fantasised about making him helpless. Surely it was only normal to want to ruffle the feathers of such a man, a man so tightly in control. But he would break. She’d seen him break. She’d seen him _cry_. She didn’t really want to force him there again, but she did want to force him out of his head. To let go for a while.

And Bill had liked it too, at least enough to get an erection when he hadn’t had one with someone else in years. So there was something there, some part of his mind that responded. And Virginia was going to find it. 

**

“Bill,” she says. “I’d like to try something tonight.”

He looks down into his glass, back up at her. His eyes are dark, hooded. He’s tired. It’s been a long day. But he’s hungry too. He’s loosened his bowtie, undone a button. 

“What - er. Did you have in mind?”

He lifts the glass to his lips, eyes locked on hers. Virginia shivers, pushed it down. She’s going to be in charge here. He can look at her like that all he wants. But maybe he’s just waiting, intrigued. Since they cured him, he’s been a little more receptive to her here, in the safe space. 

This is something else though. This isn’t work.

“Do you remember what I told you, about a fantasy of mine? Do you remember what we did?”

Does he shiver? It’s hard to tell. But there is a flare in his eyes, just for a second. A twitch of his lips. 

“I don’t beg,” he says, sips his drink. She waits but he doesn’t say anything else. Just looks at her. 

“I didn’t ask you to,” she replies lightly. “Before, or now.”

There’s been a thickness in the air around them lately, at work and here, and Virginia wonders if he finds it as hard to breathe as she does. Like a fog in her lungs, and only the touch of his mouth to hers clears it. She doesn’t dare to think about what that could mean. 

He’s thinking. She can see the gears working in his brain, and knows that she will get what she wants. He’d have said no by now if he didn’t want it too. 

And then, eventually, he nods. Virginia lets out a stuttering breath. She gets to her feet and he tenses, but she sweeps past him and examines the bed. His eyes are on her, burning her, but she ignores him. He can wait. Last time she’s improvised, bound his hands behind his back, but that won’t do for what she has planned for tonight.

“Virginia -” he says, always impatient like this, when it’s just the two of them.

“Bill,” she murmurs, eyeing the headboard, making her plan. “Come here.”

His glass clinks on the table, hard like he’s put it down too fast, and she grins. 

He comes up behind her, a hand on her waist. His fingers curling into her dress. She shivers.

“We could,” he breathes in her ear. “Do something different.”

“I want to do this.”

She turns so they’re almost face to face, she still in her heels and him in only his socks. He’s nervous, she can tell. Of course he is. Giving up control is the one thing he doesn’t do, doesn’t like to do, but he’s managed it for her before and they both know he can manage again. Right here, right now, he’s going to put himself into her hands. The thought is so erotic that Virginia almost gives in and kisses him. Fighting it, she reaches up and slides his loosened bowtie from around his neck. Runs the material through her fingers, hangs it around her own neck. 

He tries to touch her but she gently pushes them away, down to his sides.

“Stay there,” she says, starting on his buttons. His hands flex at his sides, uselessly, forming boxer fists and unforming them again. 

“Relax,” she murmurs. “I’ll make you feel good.”

“Kiss me.”

“I thought you didn’t beg?” she teases, still working at the buttons, but she takes pity on him and does as he asks. It’s a gentle thing, oddly soft, like the first time he kissed her in this room, and Virginia feels an ache in her chest that she wishes she didn’t.

So she pulls away, because if she keeps kissing him like that, they won’t make it to the main event. 

“Virginia,” he says, as she pushed his shirt from his shoulders. “I - ”

“It’s alright. I’m here.”

She doesn’t know what reassurances he needs, but this one worked pretty well last time, the last time he was vulnerable in her hands. And she really doesn’t want him to stop her, because the power is intoxicating and she hasn’t even got him on the bed yet.

As she reaches for his pants, he touches her wrists and she looks up at eyes that are wide, blown open, a contrast to his still perfect hair that she wants desperately to muss up. 

“You too,” he says, and for a moment she’s thrown, until his fingers creep up and grip at her dress. Ah yes. The last time he had been naked and she’d been clothed he’d been intensely vulnerable as she ordered him to his knees. Bill struggles with vulnerability. It is his biggest fear.

In one movement, she pulls the dress over her head and loses her underwear almost as quickly. She allows him to press his eager mouth to her breasts, then pushes him away, savouring the growl at the back of his throat. Then she steps away entirely and circles around him. He’s tense in the shoulders, and she reaches out to trace the muscle. He flinches. 

“Lose the pants,” she says. “And get on the bed.”

He doesn’t move and she wonders if she’s pushed him too far, then at the last moment he jerks into life and shucks his pants. He glances over his shoulder, licks his lips, climbs onto the bed. Virginia circles him there too, pulling the bowtie from around her neck and running it through her fingers.

“I don’t think I can trust you to be good for me,” she murmurs. “You won’t be able to stop yourself touching.”

Bill’s eyes are firmly closed, then there’s the barely there shake of his head. He knows, as well as she does. He knows who he is. Virginia chuckles and crawls onto the bed next to him, He’s trembling, and she hasn’t even started yet. The great Bill Masters, trembling at her hand. 

“If you don’t like it, Bill, you can tell me and I’ll stop,” she says, gently moving his hands over his head and looping the bowtie around his wrists. “I won’t tie you to bed. Not this time. But I’ll stop if you ask me to. Okay?”

A nod. 

“I want to make you feel good,” she says, and it isn’t even a lie. Not as such. She does have an interest in making him feel good. She just also wants to break him. Just a little. More and more these days, she wonders if she wants to make him hers. That’s a thought that can be barely be entertained. Not outside of the here and now. But for the now, in this room, she can make it true. She can own him. 

When he’s tied up tight, she leans back to admire the view. He’s closed his eyes again, and his skin is flushed dark red. She runs the back of her hand down the inside of his arm, and he shivers. Most assuredly, there’s the tell tale swell of an erection in his underwear to let her know that what she’s doing isn’t unwelcome - for the moment at least. 

He looks docile, not the Bill she knows, not the man who throws punches and smashes windows. It’s always fascinated her, the fighter side of him, the part that only comes out when he’s defending something he cares about, when he’s so angry he doesn’t know what else to do. She’s never seen Bill raise a hand to someone who didn’t deserve it, although perhaps he has - in the past. But this Bill, the man who relies on her and asked her to fix him, trusts her more than he trusts anyone else. This Bill is the man she wishes others could know. 

“Virginia,” he mumbles, his hands tight around the headboard. “What-”

“I’m just looking,” she says softly, her hands still on him, gentle. Too gentle. He hates to be gentled, at least when they’re like this. He hadn’t minded it so much when she was just holding him and stroking his hair. He’d been crying and she held him, no differently to how she held Henry, and she remembered a story about a boy who hadn’t ever gone home, a boy who knew the feel of the strap more than he did the kindness of a parent’s hand. Maybe that was the only thing he’d been missing his whole life - someone he didn’t have to be strong for. Libby was a better person than Virginia in every way, but so old fashioned; she’d have no idea what to do if Bill made himself vulnerable for her.

“Touch me,” he says, arching his back. 

“I am touching you,” she fires back, running her hands over his legs, up to his hips and back down, careful to avoid the place he wants her hand. He groans in frustration, drops his head back dramatically, and she smiles. 

“I won’t leave you,” she reassures him, digging her thumbs into the soles of his feet. “You’ll get what you want. No begging, remember? You don’t have to beg, if you can be patient.”

“It’s as though you’ve never met me.”

“Oh I don’t know,” she shrugs, letting her nails drag over his feet just enough to make him twitch violently. Interesting reaction, noted for later. 

“How long did you spend building your reputation? Becoming the great Bill Masters, the man qualified to run a sex study? You were patient.”

His eyes are closed as she skims her hands back up his legs and moves to straddle his waist. 

“You can’t argue there, see?” Virginia says. “I’ve rendered you speechless with my powers of observation and my hands on your skin.”

Her fingers trail over his nipples, just long enough to tweak, to roll them between her finger tips. He’s always insisted that he doesn’t feel anything when she touches him there, but she definitely feels a twitch of interest from his cock against her ass when he does. 

“I’m not-” He’s breathless - “Going to argue with you, Virginia.”

“Now that’s a first,” she murmurs, leaning down to kiss him. He’s desperate to touch her hair, of that she’s sure, but he’s being good for now. Even if his knuckles are white around the rungs. He follows her mouth as she takes what she wants, bites gently at his lips. When she pulls away, she’s almost certain that he whimpers. 

“What do you want, Bill?” she asks, settling her weight over his hips. “What can I give you?”

“I’m not-”

“Begging, I know. So just tell me.”

“If you don’t know by now-”

It is almost a confession, an out loud admission of what they’ve been doing. In response, Virginia begins to ease his underwear down, freeing his erection. His eyes are fixed on her. He loses control of his tongue when they’re like this, and it darts out now over and over again, licking dry lips till they’re red and puffy. 

“I do know, Bill. I know where you want to put that tongue,” she says, running a lazy finger over his cock. He shakes his head, his eyes on her breasts. He loves them, she knows. Loves to hold them, lick them, rest his head against them. His fingers are clenched around the headboard and she takes pity on him, stops touching him and leans over far enough that he can get his mouth on her. That devilish tongue. His cock twitches again and she wriggles against him, scratches her fingernails over his thighs. Hard enough to draw blood, but he’s gentle with her breast, lathing with his tongue where he’s nipped with his teeth. 

He’s being so good. So obedient. Virginia never imagined she’d get him even this far. But here they are, and he’s still doing as he’s told. 

Too good. 

“Hold up,” Virginia says, pulling away, her hands holding his shoulders pinned to the bed. “What are you doing?”

“Huh?” He blinks at her, eyes unfocused, before he seems to come back to himself. 

“You’re doing as you’re told,” Virginia frowns. “I didn’t think you would.”

“I - I -”

So he’s speechless. Maybe he’s not playing a game after all. He is not in any kind of control here.

“I’m sorry,” she soothes, sliding off him, watching his face. He’s watching her keenly, hazy, spit red lips parted, and she understands. He’s getting way more out of this than she’d ever have thought. The reason he’s behaving is because he’s _enjoying_ it. Actual enjoyment. Being bossed around and told what to do. He likes it. She’d been right all along about him.

“You’re being so good, Bill,” she says, and watches a flush creep up his neck. Emboldened, she reaches out and takes hold of his cock. He hisses under his breath. Slowly, she begins to stroke him. Angles her wrist, just how he likes it. Watches for the excitement phase creep in and then - just holds him there. Her fingers form a loose fist around him, and he growls in frustration, thrusting his hips. But she doesn’t give him anything. 

“I think what you need, but have always been afraid to ask for, is for someone to take care of you,” Virginia muses, her spare hand tracing down over his ear and coming to rest on his throat. A gentle pressure, just there. 

“I think it is the thing you’ve always been missing,” she continues, starting to slowly stroke him again. “Someone else to be in charge. Someone you can trust.”

He’s sweating and he swallows hard enough that her hand moves on his throat. His eyes fix on her and there’s something - a lost sort of look that she hasn’t seen since the day he told her he couldn’t live without her. God, all the signs have always been there. 

“I’m not going to make you wait much longer,” she says, although the hand on his cock stops once again. He’s not even plateauing. “I won’t use your own research against you, although I could. Keep you like this for hours, if I want.”

“Virginia,” he whispers, the muscles in his arms spasming and tensing. “What you said. Just now.”

“Which part?”

They’re on the edge of something here, but she’s damned if she knows what it is. And he definitely doesn’t.

“I do. Trust you. The - only one.”

He doesn’t need to say the rest. He trusts her to see him like this, to do this to him. She aches, but this is about him. She promised she wouldn’t make him beg. She’ll never make him flashback to his father. She wouldn’t wish that on her worst enemy, let alone him. Let alone Bill.

“Thank you,” she says, then begins to work him with the strong, short thrusts that he favours. He’s shaking all over just from this, her hand on him, her fingertip teasing, and God - she wants more of it. But for now, she leans down and she kisses him, as he comes all over her hand and his own stomach. 

He’s still trembling as she unties his wrists and massages them gently. She covers him with the blanket and strokes his hair until a few minutes have passed and he says gruffly, “Well. Something to be explored there, I think.”

It is the closest he’ll get to asking for it again, and it will do. 

“Did you want-?” He gestures vaguely at her, but he’s exhausted, his face slack and his eyes hooded. Virginia smiles and shakes her head. 

“I’m going to take a shower. Why don’t you order us some dinner?” she says, handing him the phone. “I think you’ve had more than enough for tonight.”

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Smoke Gets In Your Eyes which is my anthem for this ship.


End file.
